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The pictures above are sequential test images of an as-yet unpainted maquette. It’s from my current project, which is to produce illustrations for a concert performance of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. Here the Devil approaches. He carries a butterfly net for capturing unwary souls, and a magic book to tempt his prey. Extra hands, feet head and book add flexibility to the figure, allowing me to change the character’s positions and find lots of compositional variety.
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Back at the beginning of February I had an e-mail from the American musicologist and conductor David Montgomery. He’d seen three online images of monoprints I’d made years ago when I was planning an Old Stile Press book based on the libretto of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. (L’Histoire du Soldat.)
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That particular project had come to nothing, and yet the music and the story have never been far from my mind. David wondered whether I might give permission for him to use the three existing monoprints. He wanted to screen them above the heads of the orchestra during a concert performance of The Soldier’s Tale in Washington DC this month, and was wondering whether there were any more images in the suite that he could use. There weren’t, but I couldn’t resist asking him how many images he was looking for. He replied that he didn’t think there needed to be many. He could make a little go a long way. How many could I produce?
I realised quite quickly that I couldn’t guarantee more monoprints in a hurry. Produced in sticky oil-based printing-ink on a glass plate, it is to a degree a serendipitous technique that results in one good image every now and again, but is messy and rather slow because of all the cleaning up of the inked plates between printing. I suggested making some collages instead, and David agreed.
To begin with I envisaged producing a cast of maquette characters, and that I would simply use images of those taken in different positions for the projected presentation. But while preparing a puppet of the Soldier…
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……I discovered that if I didn’t join the individual pieces together with metal brads… my usual technique… but simply used them as separate components to loosely compose each image, then these unfixed ‘collages’ could be much more flexible and diverse both in terms of composition and story-telling possibilities.
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Components for a puppet before cutting out …
For instance I could make extra pieces for each puppet, allowing a head to turn or allowing a hand to close around a violin bow.
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Puppet assembled from unconnected components in an unfixed collage…
One figure could double up in many images, facing left, right or front according to what was required. A coat could be removed from a character, or a hat added. Using the techniques of replacement that are more usually the animator’s province, I could create in front of the camera not animation per se, but a great many diverse collage images. I wouldn’t aim for passages of fluidity, but I could produce narrative sequences characterised by a kind of slow-motion strobe. After all, The Soldier’s Tale lasts an hour. I couldn’t hope to produce an animation that long, but I could make enough collage images to stretch. It would even be relatively simple to produce an opening sequence for the concert, with a title card and a list of credits of the participants.
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Thereafter the characters could come to life in sequential imagery, projected onto a large screen above the orchestra. I’d effectively talked myself into another project and another tight deadline. Right now I’m working flat out on The Soldier’s Tale. My deadline is March 17th for the images, and the concert is to be on the 23rd. Anyone looking at what exists at the moment would be hard-pressed to make sense of it. Puppets and props are boxed and labelled. Upturn any box and a confetti shower of painted paper components spills out that would confound all but the most passionate devotee of jigsaw puzzles. But later this month and in front of a fixed camera and lights, the world of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale will briefly come to life in my studio as I work to assemble the many images from the hundreds of fragments. The results will be e-mailed to the States, the video presentation edited together from them, and on the 23rd of March in Washington DC, Joseph the Soldier will caper as he plays his violin, the Devil’s carriage and the horses that pull it will sail above the toy landscape beneath, and the newly awakened Princess will dance to Stravinsky’s seductive, jazzy tango. All thanks to the magic of the world wide web!
Igor Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (THE SOLDIER’S TALE)
Die Vereinigte Kirche (The United Church)
1920 G Street NW, Washington, D.C.
March 23rd
Prince William Symphony Players
De’Andre Anderson, narrator / David Montgomery, conductor
World Premiere showing of The Soldier’s Tale images by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
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It will be grand and powerful! And so fun to see with an audience.
Interesting that the foliate designs were also ultimately rooted in an Old Stile project that didn’t quite come to fruition but produced a few lovely pictures.
Very satisfying to look over the progress–and then there is the window to do!
Interestingly observed Marly, that connection between OSP projects that came to nothing and what I’ve been working on lately. The foliate heads were in development for an Old Stile Press edition of Vaughan poems chosen by me. But due to other commitments I was slow to get it underway and the project died for lack of oxygen, though not before I’d made a notebook full of preparatory images.
Now there are two projects quite separately developing the work I did on the Vaughan: the cover of your book and the poet’s commemorative window. (The present foliate head images, however, have come a long way from the sketches made for the poetry book.) The Soldier’s Tale has been a passion of mine from way before my time with the Old Stile Press, and one day I would still like to make a book of the libretto. After my original collaborator Catriona Urquhart died… Catriona had agreed to make a new translation of the text… Nicolas’ interest in the project waned, and when I went back to him with a new collaborator, he declined to go any further with the idea. At present there are no plans for a book, though my friend Ceridwen and I… Ceridwen is going to make the new translation… are very keen.
Right now the Washington DC project is very satisfying and not so very far removed from some of the issues that would arise were there a book to be done. It’s allowed me to develop characters and aspects of the narrative, and I’ve greatly enjoyed reacquainting myself with the piece. In fact The Soldier’s Tale has never been very far from my mind, but it’s been lovely to shake the dust off my ideas for it on this new project. I’m quite sure that when David Montgomery came cold-calling about the possibility of me providing him with a few images for the concert, he can have had no idea quite how welcome he would be!
It will look spectacular Clive! Thanks for running through it, it really conjures up the eventual performance for us. It must be tempting to leave the devil as drawn and not yet formed. In fact, I was going to say I love the devil – but that’s not quite pc!!
Good luck! I wish I could see the end result.
xL
I wish I could see it too Liz, but I fear it’s not on the cards. Hey ho! (I have cousins in the vicinity of Washington who I believe plan on attending.)
I know what you mean about the drawn figures. I do like them, but I don’t think that the images would have then been strong enough in the context of the performance had they remained so ghostly. Still, I’ll have the photographs of this early stage to remind me of how well they worked as objects before painting. Another project at another time perhaps. (Ahhh, now you’ve got me thinking!)
As for loving the Devil, you know what they say about who has all the best tunes!
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Sounds fantastic, clever of you to forgo the brads. Take care and try to breath.
LG
Thanks Leonard. I fear I’m going down with a cold. Breathing may get difficult. Drat! Not what I need when I’m having to work so intensively.
I don’t think that I’ll forsake brads for the maquettes I make as studio aids, but the bradless technique certainly works in circumstances such as these.
And a fly on the wall camera catching you at work creating this would make a brilliant film too! However we love seeing your creations come to life in the Artlog. Thanks again for taking precious time out to share with us.
The documentary-maker Pete Telfer, who made the two short films that were screened at my retrospective last year, is coming to the studio on the day that I assemble all the images to be photographed. Most of the time I’ll be on my knees arranging and re-arranging the compositions, and so I’m not sure how interesting it’s going to be for him as I fuss and mutter over hundreds of scraps of painted paper. It’s certainly going to be a long and concentration-intense day for me, keeping track of how all the pieces fit together.
you work amazingly under pressure
it’s fantastic what you’re creating!
Thanks Zoe. The engine is certainly revving up at the moment. Scary deadline. No room for error. Yikes!